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Virgil Abloh predicted the death of streetwear back in 2020: “Well, how many more t-shirts, sweatshirts and sneakers do we need?” he asked. “I think we will replace this with a truly unique expression of our knowledge and personal style through vintage, because there are so many cool clothes in vintage stores that you just have to start wearing. I think fashion will move away from buying new things, we’ll start looking at the archives.”
What is vintage?
Clothing becomes vintage when it reaches the age of 20, if it is made by a designer and reflects the characteristic style of the era to which it belongs. Only those things that are made from high-quality fabrics belong to vintage. If a vintage Chanel jacket has survived to this day, there is no doubt about its quality. But many modern things cannot boast that they are able to maintain a decent appearance for at least a year.
Over the past year, the vintage clothing market has made a huge leap. To say thank you for this is worth not only the general passion for the topic of sustainability, but also the stars, who increasingly prefer vintage items from new collections. Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, the Hadid sisters and other fashionistas are happy to wear 20-30-year-old clothes, and the stores where they dress are becoming new concept stores.
Why has vintage become so popular?
First, we start to get tired of “fast” fashion: low-quality, not unique, environmentally harmful things. Now giving clothes a second life is fashionable, cool and automatically puts you in the club of “conscious consumers”. An important fact: there are few vintage items, and for celebrities, and not only, this is a real opportunity not to look like everyone else.
In an era when new collections are sent out to hundreds of influencers, vintage responds to the trend for sustainability and interest in the history of things, and finally, most of the vintage things that modern fashionistas choose are things from the 1990s or 2000s that embody the aesthetics of that time. Gucci from the time of Tom Ford, sexy Mugler, Vivienne Westwood corsets from the early 90s, vintage Christian Dior, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier are in great demand. However, the same Bella Hadid willingly buys a no-name from the 2000s in a small vintage Dutch Fonzie store.
By the way, even before the pandemic, many celebrities began to go to social events in vintage clothes, for example, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Meghan Markle and others. Vintage dresses and photos of images with them always cause increased attention from the public. In this regard, I adore Rihanna – one of the brightest admirers of vintage. She regularly comes out in interesting images that are based on past collections.
An exit that made a lot of noise: in a bright pink Chanel down jacket from the autumn-winter collection of 1996, Rihanna announced her pregnancy. Ree paired a long jacket with gold buttons with torn blue jeans and vintage jewelry – not only Chanel, but also Christian Lacroix. Photos taken by celebrity photographer Miles Diggs instantly spread across social networks, and vintage collectors staged a real hunt for a down jacket (which, of course, is now certainly nowhere to be found).
Lady Gaga constantly visits vintage stores and, as we can see by looking at the gossip columns, her images invariably attract the admiring glances of fashion critics and fans. Let’s remember her appearance in the iconic Versace dress.
FKA Twigs just stunned with her appearance in a Vivienne Westwood corset. Corset with statement-print can rightly be considered a piece of art. In it, the singer appeared at the premiere of the film, accompanying him in her own style with a dressing gown and striped trousers.
In real life, Zendaya also wears vintage and sustainable brands like Rahul Mishra couture. For the Green Carpet Fashion Awards, her stylist Lowe Roach chose a dress from Versace’s fall/winter 1996 collection, Zendaya’s birth year. Gianni Versace designed this chocolate-colored evening dress. It is embellished with sparkling rhinestones over translucent fabric.
Bvlgari jewelery from the Serpenti high jewelery collection completed the look: a rose gold bracelet with snakewood elements and diamonds and earrings with emeralds, corals and diamonds. I consider it super-symbolic to shine in a dress created by the great Versace in the year of your birth.
Another famous vintage lover is Cardi B. The rapper has repeatedly chosen archival Thierry Mugler couture dresses for her exits (which is only worth her appearance on the Grammy red carpet in 2019 in a pearl dress from the 1995 autumn-winter couture collection). At the opening of the retrospective of the designer at the Palais Galliera in Paris, the star, of course, also came in the image created by Mugler: she decided to repeat the look of Eva Herzigova from the same show in 1995. And even did the same makeup!
Actress Nicole Richie is also on the list of those who treat clothing as art. For example, Nicole has about 40 vintage Chanel handbags in her collection. And the singer Dua Lipa released the track We’re Good, and with it the video. In the video, the singer appears wearing vintage Prada and Miu Miu dresses found by her stylist Lorenzo Pozocco.
Kim Kardashian recently bought Janet Jackson’s custom costume at auction for $25,000, which she wore in the If video in 1993. Auctions that sell celebrity wardrobes are not uncommon, but something else is interesting: if earlier such things were of interest mainly to collectors, now people buy vintage to wear it.
Vintage dresses are the dream of many fashionistas and connoisseurs of high fashion. Even celebrities from the A-list do not always get access to the closed archives of museums. The most striking indicator of the total triumph of vintage is the scandalous appearance of Kim in a Marilyn Monroe dress at the Met Gala. In order to wear the legendary dress from the museum, Kim lost 7 kilograms in three weeks. And to make the image seem complete, a few hours before the celebration, the star dyed her hair in a platinum blonde. At one time, Marilyn’s outfit was the first “naked” dress that the Jean Louis brand created for the star based on the sketch of the legendary American fashion designer Bob Mackie.
I have always gravitated towards originality and uniqueness, and conscious consumption is not an empty phrase for me, so I am very happy to create images partially or completely with vintage elements, both for myself and for clients. I already see how vintage is making its first steps in Russia and I believe in success. Everyone can choose how much vintage their image will consist of: from an almost theatrical reconstruction of another era to a slight hint.
Source: Hellomagazine
Benjamin Smith is a fashion journalist and author at Gossipify, known for his coverage of the latest fashion trends and industry insights. He writes about clothing, shoes, accessories, and runway shows, providing in-depth analysis and unique perspectives. He’s respected for his ability to spot emerging designers and trends, and for providing practical fashion advice to readers.
